What made you want to work in the publishing industry?

I have always been obsessed with sport and especially football, and while a career as a professional player was never an option, writing about football seemed like the next best option. I loved newspapers and magazines from a young age and it was always my aim to work in the industry. I have worked at a few places over the years but being the editor of FourFourTwo is the ultimate job – a magazine I started reading right at the very beginning back in 1994. 

Chart your career from the start to where you are now.

My career in journalism started back in 2006 at a local newspaper – the Windsor and Slough Observer – where I was a junior news reporter. After just over a year I moved to the sports press agency Hayters, before going to be news editor at The Football League Paper. After two years there I moved to the Daily Mail/MailOnline where I worked on the sports desk for both the paper and the website. I was at the Mail for six years and held various positions, including news editor and night editor. I then moved to Sportsbeat press agency where I ran a lot of editorial projects including running news services for the ICC at the Cricket World Cups in 2017 and 2019. Then in December, 2019 I became editor of FourFourTwo magazine. 

As Editor of a football magazine, how has your approach to each issue changed since the cancellation of sport matches, in regards to the content of each issue?

On the whole we do not rely on live football to produce the magazine. That said, this summer was due to be the Euros and we were planning on a number of issues building up to the tournament, focusing interviews and features on players and teams. The issue that we are working on at the moment was due to be the last issue before the Euros, with our tournament supplement – one of the most popular issues of FourFourTwo ahead of every tournament. If we can take any positives from this time it is that the Euros were called off fairly early, so we were able to rip up our plans and start again. We have had to be creative and approach things in a different way, but most importantly produce a magazine every month that people want to read and are interested in. And hopefully a magazine that gives the reader a bit of escapism in these difficult times. 

How can a football magazine engage and bring together the football community at this time? Have you seen an increase in engagement?

We have used our social media channels to try and bring people together. We have created ‘watchalong’ events on Saturdays at 3pm. So in the absence of any live football taking place at that time, we pick a match that is available on YouTube in full, and we let people know what the game is and encourage them to start watching at the same time, we then tweet through the game ‘as live’ and engage with our followers. We then give them articles on the website to read around that game once it has finished. It provides a bit of escapism for people and gives people some sort of football to enjoy when there is no actual sport taking place. 

How have you adapted to pulling together a monthly magazine virtually? Will you carry on any good practice that you have adopted once this is over?

The whole team has responded really well to working from home and we have not encountered too many difficulties. We all work from work laptops anyway and so we have all the software we need to produce the magazine. We have regular meetings via Google Hangout and are always in touch with each other over Slack. Everyone has got stuck in and contributed ideas and shown a ‘can do’ attitude which I am sure will continue going forward if and when we are able to return to the office and ‘normal’ – whatever that will end up being. 

What's on your Radar?

We have just relaunched our website to make it more user friendly. We are working on a number of new website features, including more fan content as well as widening the number of features we do. We produce very popular quizzes online and one idea we have is to expand those into virtual pub quizzes to be played during and beyond lockdown.

In terms of the magazine, there are a few things I would like to do and ideas I have for certain issues, which I was working on before the lockdown. Hopefully we can revisit those things in the future, but I don’t want to say too much now!

What tips do you have for working from home?

I have seen various articles and videos about this in the last few weeks, and I have seen people say ‘make sure you are working in a room different to your bedroom or where you like to relax’, but that is not always a realistic option for many people. My advice would be things that everyone is able to do like keep in regular contact with your colleagues. Chat over video calls or email and if you are struggling or having a bad day, then tell someone. We are all in this together and it is tough and new for everyone, so it is ok not to be on top form every day. Another tip would be to stick to work hours as it's easy with no commuting to start and finish earlier or later than normal. Be disciplined and start when you would normally and finish on time as well. 

What magazine would you choose to stockpile?

I’ve gone through phases of stockpiling magazines, from Shoot when I was young and getting into football to Melody Maker and NME when I was a teenager and obsessed with the music press. More recently, and before I got this job, it was FourFourTwo. I subscribed to the magazine before I worked here and so have issues going back years, which is quite handy now we are working from home if I ever need to look back at an old issue. But to answer the question and not give one that I edit, I would say the music magazine Q.